The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos

Throughout much of my life, I have seen/heard parodies of movies/songs before seeing/hearing the originals; sometimes I only learn about the originals because I see/hear the parodies. I'll see something on "The Simpsons" and a few years later see which movie it came from, or I'll hear a "Weird Al" Yankovic song and then later hear the spoofed song.

But it's not just through "The Simpsons" and "Weird Al" Yankovic that this happens. I often see classic Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons and later learn about what they parodied. While "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos" is certainly a funny cartoon, I have to admit that until I read the IMDb description, I'd never heard of Ernie Hare (represented as Ernie Bear).

Truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised if many members of my generation know the spoofs before knowing the originals, partly because the parodied movies, songs, etc., are often so old school or hokey that generation Y would take no stock in them. Or I might be wrong.

But I digress. I recommend this cartoon.

I first encountered this short while re-watching many of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons on DVD. The Looney Tunes shorts in particular have been some of my favorite cartoons since childhood and I enjoy many of Warner's other early efforts as well. While many of these classic cartoons make pop cultural references that have become obscure or mostly forgotten in the modern day, most of them maintain a timeless quality that children and adults of all generations still enjoy. The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos however is one of the most outdated Warner Brothers cartoons that I have seen, to the point where it's one of the only classic cartoons I have ever felt the urge to write about.

This cartoon is simply a parody of 1930s radio culture, parodying famous celebrities of the time as birds and woodland critters. I imagine this short film must have been hilarious upon release and would have succeeded at its intentions, but 77 years later it comes off as mostly outdated and incredibly boring as a result of the now obscure cultural references. The celebrity references to Bing Crosby, Al Jolson and WC Fields, which I recognized, weren't enough to save this cartoon for me. This could be because in the current age of brutal and scathing celebrity caricatures as done by South Park and Family Guy, simply seeing cartoon versions of 1930s celebrities as animals with puns based around their names is anemic by comparison. Which is another reason this cartoon aged so poorly, its approach to caricatures and parodies is simply, "hey look who it is, your favorite star in cartoon form with a pun for a name." The jokes run on a "can you guess who this is?" basis and do little else with the caricatures. Today this cartoon plays out like watching a late night show 10 or 20 years after its first airing, many of the jokes become forgotten, and the ones that are possibly remembered are often too far removed from cultural context to remain funny. This style of humor ages poorly, but has a place in culture as it can be very funny before its expiration date.

While I've bashed the cartoon's comedic content and long expired cultural relevance, this isn't a terrible cartoon by any means. The animation is great, especially considering the amount of characters present and the beautiful hand drawn efforts of animators from the pre-computer time. There is also a high level of energy to the cartoon that makes it somewhat watchable for anyone who is curious to see how a parody of then-fresh cultural references from the 1930s would play out. And I understand that parodying celebrities in this fashion was popular at the time, considering that many other cartoons from this era do the same, though admittedly the references to classic film stars age significantly better than references to radio culture of the time. The classic cartoon "Goofy Groceries," in which food mascots come to life in a grocery store after closing, takes a similar approach and not only references brands that are still regularly sold in the 2010s, but also uses the caricatures in a much more creative way than the rather shallow approach seen here.

When all is said and done, I don't regret watching this as it gave me one of the most unusual reactions I have ever had to a classic cartoon, but unless you were alive and following 1930s radio culture during its time, or have researched it enough to understand the ins and outs of it, the humor and cultural references are going to fall flat for most modern viewers.

This is another cartoon that is full of caricatured Hollywood celebrities. I guess really liked doing this in the mid to late 1930s.

The story is simple: it's a musical concert being held in the woods and broadcast over radio station KUKU. Featured is the "Woodland Community Swing,"

Most of the "stars" aren't performing but seated in the reserved seats. The gags with them are the puns concerning their names, converting them to animals, such as Eddie Gander, Sophie Turkey, W.C. Fieldmouse, Dick Fowl, Fats Swallow, Irvin S. Frog, Fred McFurry, Bing Crowsby, Al Goatson, Ruby Squealer, Deanna Terrapin, etc. You get the picture.

The talent show was lame except for two loudmouths: "Moutha Bray" and "Andy Bovine." The jokes were either way too dated or corny.

If I was familiar with announcer Alexander Woollcott and emcee Ben Bernie, who apparently were well-known during this period, I couldn't appreciated the caricatures more. That included a few other people whom I had no idea about. That's the problem with doing cartoons making fun of the culture. Seventy years later, few people know what you're talking about! Then again, who would have thought back then that there would be VHS and DVDs showing their work over a half-century later to whole new generations!

Frank Tashlin's 'The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos' is another of the then-popular Hollywood caricature cartoons of the 30s and early 40s. Once enormous crowd-pleasers, these cartoons have obviously aged significantly and are largely notable for being fun star-spotting exercises for modern day film buffs. I consider myself a huge cinema fan and was able to identify many of the caricatures in cartoons such as 'Hollywood Steps Out' and 'The Coo Coo Nut Grove' but 'The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos' is mostly made up of far more obscure reference points which will go over the head of most modern day audience members (myself included). It's a shame because 'The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos' looks great and seems as if it would have been particularly funny in its day. However, it relies so strongly on the viewer being in on the joke that it quickly becomes boring for anyone who is missing the point of gag after gag. As such, I feel it's practically impossible for me to properly rate 'The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos' fairly. I may have been bored but that was more my fault than Frank Tashlin's.

This is one of the earliest full color cartoons turned out by the Termite Terrace crew and I wouldn't expect you to be interested unless you are fairly familiar with popular culture seventy years ago and able to figure out, for example, that Lilly Swans is supposed to be Lily Pons -- there were three or four that escaped me (I have no idea who Tizzie Fish is supposed to be -- a radio cooking show host, apparently).

The cartoon is a just a series of "can you identify this one?" gags. You might be interested in looking at the Art Deco style of cartooning that Tash used in this one -- it showed up in a couple of other early color Loony Tunes like PAGE MISS GLORY and then vanished into the standard house style.